Cart

  • SUGGESTED TOPICS
  • The Magazine
  • Newsletters
  • Managing Yourself
  • Managing Teams
  • Work-life Balance
  • The Big Idea
  • Data & Visuals
  • Reading Lists
  • Case Selections
  • HBR Learning
  • Topic Feeds
  • Account Settings
  • Email Preferences

6 Steps to Make Your Strategic Plan Really Strategic

  • Graham Kenny

management strategy in business plan

You don’t need dozens of strategic goals.

Many strategic plans aren’t strategic, or even plans. To fix that, try a six step process: first, identify key stakeholders. Second, identify a specific, very important key stakeholder: your target customer. Third, figure out what these stakeholders want from you. Fourth, figure out what you want from them. Fifth, design your strategy around these requirements. Sixth, focus on continuously improving this plan.

Why is it that when a group of managers gets together for a strategic planning session they often emerge with a document that’s devoid of “strategy”, and often not even a plan ?

management strategy in business plan

  • Graham Kenny is CEO of  Strategic Factors and author of the book Strategy Discovery.   He is a recognized expert in strategy and performance measurement who helps managers, executives, and boards create successful organizations in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. He has been a professor of management in universities in the U.S., and Canada.  You can connect to or follow him on  LinkedIn .

Partner Center

  • Contact sales

Start free trial

Strategic Planning in Business

ProjectManager

Table of Contents

What is business strategic planning, the strategic planning process in 3 steps, what is a business strategic plan, key components of a business strategic plan, business strategic plan example, strategic plan vs. business plan.

Strategic planning is key for success in business. By planning strategically for the future, a business can achieve its goals. It’s easier said than done, but the more you know about strategic planning, the better chance you have at succeeding.

Business strategic planning is the process of creating a business strategy and an accompanying business strategic plan to implement a company’s vision and achieve its goals over time. The main goal of strategic planning is to take a company from its current state to its desired state through a series of business actions.

The business strategic planning process usually consists of defining business goals, doing a SWOT analysis to assess the company’s business environment and developing a business strategy. The leadership team is in charge of business strategic planning, as it has a very important impact on the overall direction of a company.

management strategy in business plan

Get your free

Strategic Plan Template

Use this free Strategic Plan Template for Word to manage your projects better.

Strategic Planning is one of the three levels of organizational planning, which is the process that allows organizations to define its objectives for the future and make action plans to guide the efforts of each of its departments, employees and management levels .

The other two levels of organizational planning are tactical and operational planning. Let’s see how these three types of organizational planning differ from each other.

Strategic Planning vs. Tactical Planning

While a strategic plan is created by the top management team and defines the high-level strategic goals of an entire organization, a tactical plan has a narrower scope. A tactical plan is created by the middle management level of a business and describes the specific goals, initiatives, challenges and resources for each department and how its efforts contribute to the completion of the larger strategic plan of the business.

Strategic Planning vs. Operational Planning

An operational plan allows you to establish guidelines, procedures and best practices for the daily operations of your business. The main objective of operational planning is to ensure that your business operations contribute to the accomplishment of the strategic objectives defined in the strategic plan.

Strategic planning is very important, but it doesn’t need to be overly complex. Let’s simplify this process by breaking it down into three simple steps.

1. Set Business Goals

A business goal is simply an accomplishment that a company wants to achieve in the short, medium or long term. Business goals can take many forms such as increasing sales, revenue, customer satisfaction levels and brand positioning, among many other things.

2. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

The goal of a business strategy is to leverage the strengths of a business and minimize the impact of its weaknesses. Those two things are internal factors. The strengths of a company can become competitive advantages that can lead to business growth. There are many types of business strengths and weaknesses such as scale, speed, or R&D, just to name a few.

Threats and opportunities refer to external factors such as competitors or an untapped market. A successful business strategy considers all of these factors to define how a product or service will be created, marketed and sold, and a SWOT analysis is a great starting point.

3. Develop a Business Strategy & Strategic Plan

Once you’ve completed your SWOT analysis, you can create a business strategy that’s designed to help position your company in the market. Your business strategy guides how you produce, market and sell your product or service based on internal and external analysis.

Then, you’ll need a strategic plan to explain how you plan to execute that business strategy. To oversee the execution of a business strategic plan, managers need to manage time, costs and tasks. ProjectManager is a project planning tool that allows managers to plan, schedule and manage their team’s work. Plan your work with professional tools such as Gantt charts, kanban boards, task lists and calendars. Then track your progress in real time to stick to your strategic plan. Get started for free.

Gantt chart in projectmanager

A business strategic plan is an implementation plan that’s meant to turn a business strategy into action items that can be executed over time. Business strategic plans are usually executed over the course of 3-5 years.

How to Develop a Strategic Plan

To develop a strategic plan, you should ask yourself the following three questions.

  • Where Is the Business Now? Gather as much information on your business as possible including internal operations and what drives its profitability. Compare the business to competitors and note the similarities and differences in detail. This isn’t a day-to-day operational study, but a broader look at the business in context to itself and its environment. But don’t go crazy; stay realistic in terms of your business goals. Be detached and critical in your analysis.
  • Where Do You Want to Go? Now it’s time to decide what your top-level objectives are for the future. Start with a vision statement , objectives, values, techniques and goals. Look forward to five years or more to forecast where you want the business to be at that time. This means figuring out what the focus of the business will be in the future. Will that focus differ from what it is now, and what competitive advantages do have you in the marketplace? This is where you build the foundation and initiate changes.
  • How Can You Get There? Once you know where you are and where you want to go, it’s time to plan. What are the changes to the structure, financing, etc., necessary for the business to get there? Decide on the best way to implement those changes, the timeframe with deadlines and how to finance it. Remember, this is looking at the business at large, so consider major endeavors such as diversification, existing growth, acquisition and other functional matters. A gap analysis can be a big help here.

Once you’ve answered the above questions and have a way to achieve the long-term goals laid out in the strategic plan, the next step is making sure you have the right person to manage all of its moving parts. They must be analytical, a creative thinker and able to grasp operational detail.

That doesn’t mean the strategic plan is led by one person. It’s best to not do it alone; seek other opinions. The people in your organization, from bottom to top, are all great resources to offer perspectives from their standpoints. Don’t forget to take in the advice of stakeholders, including customers, clients, advisors and consultants.

To create a strong strategic plan, one must first have a strong understanding of the business that is to expand. How does the business work? Where does the business stand in relation to competitors in the marketplace? A strategic plan is built on the bones of the following foundational elements:

  • Mission Statement: The mission statement describes what your company does.
  • Vision Statement: The vision statement explains where your company expects to be in the future.
  • Core Values: Guiding principles that shape your company’s organizational culture.
  • Business Objectives: Consider using the SMART goal-setting technique . This simply means setting up specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound objectives that your company wants to achieve.
  • SWOT Analysis: External and internal factors that make up your company’s business competitive environment.
  • Action Plan: A plan outlining steps that will be taken to achieve the business objectives of your organization.
  • Financials: A section that shows the financial performance expectations, the budget and the resources that will be required to implement the action plan.
  • Performance Measurements: Performance indicators that will be used to measure the effectiveness of the action plan.

Never forget to check your strategic plan against reality. In addition to being achievable, it must be practical for your business environment, resources and marketplace.

Now let’s look at a simple business strategic plan example. This is a strategic plan for a small construction company.

1. Mission, Vision & Core Values

  • Mission Statement: To build residential spaces that provide wellbeing for our clients.
  • Vision Statement: To offer the best construction experience for our clients and expand our brand throughout the globe.
  • Core Values: Sustainable innovation and respect for the environment.

2. Business Objectives

  • Business Objective 1: Grow operating margin from 15% to 20% over the next year.
  • Business Objective 2: Reduce operating costs by 5% over the next quarter
  • Business Objective 3: Increase the number of new contracts generated by 10% over the next year

3. SWOT Analysis

  • Strengths: Available financing, brand visibility and know-how.
  • Weaknesses: Lack of PPE, human capital and expertise in construction areas such as plumbing, electrical work and masonry, which requires subcontractors.
  • Opportunities: Lack of environmentally-friendly construction companies in the market.
  • Threats: Larger construction companies compete for contracts in the area.

4. Action Plan

  • Business Objective 1: To grow operating margin, new employees with plumbing, electrical work and masonry experience will be hired to cut down subcontractor costs. This must be done by the end of the first quarter.
  • Business Objective 2: To reduce operating costs, the company will acquire property, plant and equipment. By doing this, the company will no longer rent equipment from third parties, which will reduce operating costs significantly in the medium and long term.
  • Business Objective 3: To increase the number of new contracts generated, the leadership team will invest more in the PR, marketing and advertising departments. The company will also invest in key positions for the construction bidding process such as contract estimators.
  • Financials: This section will explain in detail what are the costs associated with the work items in the action plan as well as the expected financial benefits for the company.

Our free strategic plan template helps leadership teams gather important information about their business strategy, which makes it the perfect tool to start shaping a strategic plan for your business or project.

management strategy in business plan

More Free Strategic Planning Templates

Here are some free strategic planning templates for Word and Excel that will help you with key aspects of the strategic planning process. Use them individually or add them to your strategic plan template for Word so you don’t miss any detail about your organizational strategy.

Strategic Roadmap Template

This strategic roadmap template allows you to map the activities, strategic projects and initiatives that each business department will execute to accomplish the objectives defined in the strategic plan of an organization.

management strategy in business plan

Strategic Map Template

This strategic map template it’s a strategic planning tool that allows you to visualize all the strategic objectives of your organization and understand how they’re interrelated.

strategic map template

Balanced Scorecard Template

A balanced scorecard is a chart that allows you to set strategic objectives that will benefit your business in one of four key areas, its finances, internal processes, customer satisfaction and organizational learning.

Balanced Scorecard Template

Vision Statement Template

The vision statement is one of the most important aspects of the organizational strategy of a business. It’s a short but powerful statement that describes the overall direction of a company and what it intends to achieve in the future. This free vision statement template will help you focus on what matters most and define the vision of your business.

Vision Statement Template

A strategic plan is a type of business plan, but there are distinctions between the two. Whereas a strategic plan is for implementing and managing the strategic direction of a business, a business plan is more often the document that starts a business.

A business plan is used primarily to get funding for the venture or direct the operation, and the two plans target different timeframes in business history. A strategic plan is used to investigate a future period, usually between three-to-five years. A business plan is more routinely a year out.

A Different Intent

A strategic plan offers a business focus, direction and action to help the business grow from the point it presently resides to a greater market share in the future. A business plan, on the other hand, is more focused on offering a structure to capture and implement ideas that initially define a business.

With a strategic plan, existing resources are prioritized to increase revenue and return on investment. The business plan is different in that it’s seeking funding for a venture that doesn’t yet exist. Where a strategic plan is building a sustainable competitive advantage in the future, a business plan is designed to take advantage of a current business opportunity.

So, a strategic plan is communicating direction to teams and stakeholders in order to achieve future goals. A business plan isn’t talking to staff, which is likely nonexistent or minimal at this point. It’s speaking to banks and other financial supporters.

Related Strategic Planning Content

  • Strategic Project Management: Planning Strategic Projects
  • Strategic Planning Models: An Introduction to 5 Popular Models
  • A Quick Guide to Strategic Initiatives
  • How to Create a Strategic Roadmap for Your Organization
  • Project Alignment: Aligning Your Project to Business Strategy

Strategic planning, like any planning, requires keeping a lot of balls in the air. That means having the right tool to plan, monitor and report on all the various tasks and resources. ProjectManager is online project management software that gives you control over every aspect of creating and implementing a strategic plan. Try it today with this free 30-day trial.

Click here to browse ProjectManager's free templates

Deliver your projects on time and under budget

Start planning your projects.

  • Search Search Please fill out this field.

What Is Strategic Management?

  • How It Worls
  • The 5 Phases
  • Strategic Management FAQs

The Bottom Line

  • Business Essentials

management strategy in business plan

Investopedia / Alex Dos Diaz

Strategic management is the management of an organization’s resources to achieve its goals and objectives.

Strategic management involves setting objectives, analyzing the competitive environment, analyzing the internal organization, evaluating strategies, and ensuring that management rolls out the strategies across the organization .

Key Takeaways

  • Companies, universities, nonprofits, and other organizations can use strategic management as a way to make goals and meet objectives.
  • Flexible companies may find it easier to make changes to their structure and plans, while inflexible companies may chafe at a changing environment.
  • A strategic manager may oversee strategic management plans and devise ways for organizations to meet their benchmark goals. 

Understanding Strategic Management

Strategic management is divided into several schools of thought. A prescriptive approach to strategic management outlines how strategies should be developed, while a descriptive approach focuses on how strategies should be put into practice. These schools differ on whether strategies are developed through an analytic process, in which all threats and opportunities are accounted for, or are more like general guiding principles to be applied.

Business culture , the skills and competencies of employees, and organizational structure are all important factors that influence how an organization can achieve its stated objectives. Inflexible companies may find it difficult to succeed in a changing business environment. Creating a barrier between the development of strategies and their implementation can make it difficult for managers to determine whether objectives have been efficiently met.

While an organization’s upper management is ultimately responsible for its strategy , the strategies are often sparked by actions and ideas from lower-level managers and employees. An organization may have several employees devoted to strategy, rather than relying solely on the chief executive officer ( CEO ) for guidance.

Because of this reality, organizational leaders focus on learning from past strategies and examining the environment at large. The collective knowledge is then used to develop future strategies and to guide the behavior of employees to ensure that the entire organization is moving forward. For these reasons, effective strategic management requires both an inward and outward perspective.

Strategic management extends to internal and external communication practices as well as to tracking, which ensures that the company meets goals as defined in its strategic management plan.

The 5 Phases of Strategic Management

Strategic management involves managing an organization's resources, analyzing internal and external forces, and developing strategies to realize goals and objectives. There are five key phases that can help businesses execute their strategies.

  • An organization must first establish clear, realistic goals. Its goals should answer what the company wants to achieve and why. Once set, the company can then identify the objectives, or how the goals will be reached. During this phase, the company can articulate its vision and long and short-term goals.
  • Organizations must then be able to examine, understand, and codify what internal and external forces affect their business and goals, as well as what it needs to remain competitive. Analytical tools, such as SWOT analysis, are helpful during this phase.
  • Based on the results of the analysis, the company can then develop its strategy, outlining how the company will achieve its goals and how. In this phase, the company will identify the needed people, technology, and other resources; how these resources will be allocated to fulfill tasks, and what performance metrics are needed to measure success. It is also critical to gain buy-in from stakeholders and business leaders.
  • Once the strategies are defined, it is time for execution. The strategy is taken from planning to implementation. During this phase, the allocated resources are placed into action based on their roles and responsibilities.
  • The final stage of strategic management is to evaluate the effectiveness of implemented strategies using defined metrics. The company will also visit whether ineffective strategies should be replaced with more viable ones. The company should continue to monitor the business landscape and internal operations, as well as maintain strategies that have proven effective.

Example of Strategic Management

For example, a for-profit technical college wishes to increase new student enrollment and enrolled student graduation rates over the next three years. The purpose is to make the college known as the best buy for a student's money among five for-profit technical colleges in the region, with a goal of increasing revenue.

In that case, strategic management means ensuring the school has funds to create high-tech classrooms and hire the most qualified instructors. The college also invests in marketing and recruitment and implements student retention strategies. The college’s leadership assesses whether its goals have been achieved on a periodic basis.

Why Is Strategic Management Important?

Helping their company find ways to be more competitive is the purpose of strategic management. To that end, putting strategic management plans into practice is the most important aspect of the planning itself. Plans in practice involve identifying benchmarks, realigning resources—financial and human—and putting leadership resources in place to oversee the creation, sale, and deployment of products and services.

In business, strategic management is important because it allows a company to analyze areas for operational improvement. In many cases, they can follow either an analytical process, which identifies potential threats and opportunities, or simply follow general guidelines. Given the structure of the organization, a company may choose to follow either a prescriptive or descriptive approach to strategic management. Under a prescriptive model, strategies are outlined for development and execution. By contrast, a descriptive approach describes how a company can develop these strategies. 

Strategic management is the process of setting goals, procedures, and objectives in order to make a company or organization more competitive. Typically, strategic management looks at effectively deploying staff and resources to achieve these goals. Often, strategic management includes strategy evaluation, internal organization analysis, and strategy execution throughout the company.

What Is an Example of Strategic Management?

Consider a large company that wants to achieve more ambitious online sales rates. To meet these goals, the company will develop a strategy, communicate this strategy, apply it across various units and departments in the organization, integrate this with employee goals, and execute accordingly. If an effective strategy is applied, ideally, it will help the company achieve its targets through a single, coordinated process. 

What Are the Key Elements of Strategic Management?

Strategic management is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. However, there are key elements that are found to be critical. These include goal setting, industry and organizational analyses, strategy formation, strategy implementation; and the measurement, monitoring, and controlling of strategies.

Strategic management is the assembling and management of resources to achieve a company's goals and objectives. Although it is often segmented into either prescriptive or descriptive schools of thought, many businesses subscribe to a combined philosophy, defining how a strategy should be developed and how the strategies will be employed. Strategic management helps companies set goals, gain a competitive edge, better manage their resources, and more. There is not one prescription for all. Companies must create and adapt a strategic management process that works best for their company and those they serve. Strategic management does not end with the successful implementation of strategies; it continues for the life of the business.

management strategy in business plan

  • Terms of Service
  • Editorial Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Your Privacy Choices

Learn more

How it works

Transform your enterprise with the scalable mindsets, skills, & behavior change that drive performance.

Explore how BetterUp connects to your core business systems.

We pair AI with the latest in human-centered coaching to drive powerful, lasting learning and behavior change.

Build leaders that accelerate team performance and engagement.

Unlock performance potential at scale with AI-powered curated growth journeys.

Build resilience, well-being and agility to drive performance across your entire enterprise.

Transform your business, starting with your sales leaders.

Unlock business impact from the top with executive coaching.

Foster a culture of inclusion and belonging.

Accelerate the performance and potential of your agencies and employees.

See how innovative organizations use BetterUp to build a thriving workforce.

Discover how BetterUp measurably impacts key business outcomes for organizations like yours.

A demo is the first step to transforming your business. Meet with us to develop a plan for attaining your goals.

Request a demo

  • For Individuals

Best practices, research, and tools to fuel individual and business growth.

View on-demand BetterUp events and learn about upcoming live discussions.

The latest insights and ideas for building a high-performing workplace.

  • BetterUp Briefing

The online magazine that helps you understand tomorrow's workforce trends, today.

Innovative research featured in peer-reviewed journals, press, and more.

Founded in 2022 to deepen the understanding of the intersection of well-being, purpose, and performance

We're on a mission to help everyone live with clarity, purpose, and passion.

Join us and create impactful change.

Read the buzz about BetterUp.

Meet the leadership that's passionate about empowering your workforce.

For Business

What is strategic plan management and how does it benefit teams?

Understand Yourself Better:

Big 5 Personality Test

Find my Coach

Jump to section

What is strategic plan management?

6 key stages of strategic plan management

What to include in a strategic plan, the benefits of strategic plan management, limitations of strategic plan management.

Tips to becoming an effective and efficient strategic manager

Case Study: Office of Strategy Management at the Chrysler Group

What is strategic plan management and why does it matter? Well, imagine this scenario:

Your company creates its strategic plan . Leadership signs off. Maybe they set aside an hour a month to check in. Business units do their own evaluations and make some course corrections. At the end of the year, everybody evaluates again. Too often, this involves coming to grips with the fact that this is one more year of failing to deliver on the plan!

Does this sound at all familiar?

The problem is not that companies are missing revenue targets or other goals, at least in the short term. It is more in the way they strive for these goals that needs improving.

Organizations whose strategic plans go unrealized may have to go all the way back to the drawing board. Maybe they are missing, or not fully investing in, critical strategic planning steps. Or perhaps they are not asking the right questions. How is the market changing? How do they want to position themselves in that market? What information could confirm or inform the assessment to determine its validity? What are the internal and external landscapes that need to be considered? Only after answering these and other questions can a plan start to take shape.

See how BetterUp Works - Watch Demo

But the work is not done, yet. Many organizations behave as though the planning is merely checking off the box of annual imperatives. The templates are filled out, decks presented, and the plan is filed away somewhere between offsite storage and the organization’s consciousness. End of story.

However, smart businesses have recognized that both the unexpected and the comfortable familiarity of the day-to-day have a way of drowning out the latest strategic plan. A successful strategic planning process requires a robust and coordinated effort to ensure the plans’ success. And that is where strategic plan management comes in. 

Strategic plans need systems of strategic management and strategic leadership .

BE THE FIRST TO KNOW

Stay up to date with new resources and insights.

Thank you for your interest in BetterUp.

What is strategic pan management?

Strategic business management is the iterative process by which an organization creates and sustains a successful strategic plan. This plan takes big-picture thinking and funnels it down to key initiatives.

The plan's purpose if to move the company in the direction it needs to move, year after year, for long-term success. It spans from research and formulation to execution, evaluation, and adjustment. Given the pace of change, strategic management is more relevant and important than ever.

A strategic management initiative might be driven by an internal group — many companies have an internal strategy team — or an outside consulting firm. Ultimately, company leaders need to own executing and sustaining the strategy. 

The managing group is responsible for creating and implementing an effective strategic plan. This includes conducting internal/external analyses, formulating the plan, and tying it to the organization’s goals . They create the roadmap, mark long and short-term goals , and create an action plan to bring everything to life.

They also organize and run strategic planning reviews. They coach and advise the executive team. They work with management throughout the organization to communicate, coordinate and evaluate progress against goals.

They tie strategic objectives to day-to-day operational metrics throughout the enterprise. A good strategic management group makes the strategic plan real and compelling to the organization through concrete objectives, results, and timelines.

team meeting discussing the strategic plan

A lot has been written on corporate strategy. Classic corporate strategy revolves around finding and maintaining a competitive advantage. A company would use frameworks such as Porter’s 5 Forces or BCG’s Growth Share Matrix to make sense of its strengths, competitors, and where it can succeed in the market. 

In the past two decades, classic strategy has had to adapt. In some cases this means yielding, to markets and a business environment that has become less stable or predictable.

Strategy has evolved, with more iterative approaches gaining favor and moving away from the 5-year plan, yet the basic steps of strategic management can apply regardless of the approach. 

  • Determine where/what you want to be. Do you approach strategy from the inside-out — identifying the organization’s capabilities and competitive advantages first — or the outside-in — understanding long-term forces and how they are shaping the market first? Be clear about what assumptions you are making. Are the assumptions based on short-term trends in the industry, longer-term trends for customers, or are they focused on analyzing the competition? 
  • Gather others to test assumptions. Bring together leaders and others with different perspectives and frames of reference to pressure-test the assumptions. What additional information would validate or clarify an assumption? How might you get that information? How would that adjust the plan? Involving others also creates buy-in.
  • Analyze strengths and weaknesses . What capabilities and assets does the company have relative to where it wants to play? You can run a SWOT analysis here to examine your opportunities and successes.
  • Formulation of the plan . When you do the homework, you can make choices and trade-offs — where the company wants to go, what it will need to develop to get there, what it will do, and what it will have to abandon. This stage includes convening representatives from key stakeholders, clarifying the vision, developing an overview of the plan including goals and objectives , and outlining responsibilities, resources, and timelines. They also establish benchmarks to measure progress.  
  • Execution. The strategy group has to stay engaged, keeping contact with the various parts of the organization and making sure they have the resources, clarity, and motivation to keep executing the strategy .
  • Monitor, review, and adjust. This step might be the biggest opportunity for differentiating the success and sustainability of a strategic plan. Is reporting and evaluation of results just a check-box formality? An exercise in covering and one-upmanship? Or, is this a frequent check-in where business leaders can talk through what they are doing  and surface roadblocks, concerns and new information that might warrant revisiting the plan?

Many organizations cover the first four steps and consider themselves complete. Often they fail because they don’t have the strategic management team at the table right from the beginning to put to action and monitor the plan.

 In The Balanced Scorecard , authors David Norton and Robert Kaplan report that 90% of organizations fail to execute their strategies successfully. They contend that because companies have not created a plan for execution, the strategic plan falls flat. 

John Kotter , former professor at Harvard Business School and noted expert on innovation says, “Strategy should be viewed as a dynamic force that constantly seeks opportunities, identifies initiatives that will capitalize on them, and completes those initiatives swiftly and efficiently.”

woman in orange sweater writing a strategic plan

When managing a strategic plan, it is important to check that all of the necessary elements exist. Otherwise, you could end up revising parts of the plan or pivoting more often than you would with these elements.

To keep things running smoothly, each strategic plan document should include the following components:

  • The company’s mission statement
  • The organizational goals of the plan
  • A vision statement
  • A roadmap with time frames for each step of the plan
  • The methods and tactics you will use to reach these business goals

Why strategies fail in the execution

Leadership deficits or lukewarm commitment.

In this HBR article, Ron Carucci from consulting firm Navalent reports that 61% of executives in a 10-year longitudinal study felt they were not prepared for the strategic challenges they faced after moving into senior leadership roles.

A lack of commitment to the plan is also a contributing factor. In addition, leaders attending to quarterly targets, crisis management, and reconciling budgets often push execution down the priority list.

Lack of metrics   

Companies fail to apply metrics to track progress, which leads to ambiguous goals. Without metrics, it is easy to go off-track or to not recognize when conditions have changed and the plan should be revised. 

Lack of systemic alignment 

When strategies aren’t linked to budgets, strategic “priorities” don’t get resources. Local budgeting often reflects the conflicting objectives or goals for a group or business unit that are not consistent with strategic priorities.  

Insufficient communication

Lack of down-the-line communication leads to confusion and lack of information enterprise-wide. This sparks distrust and negatively impacts commitment. The people closest to the customer are often in the dark. Kaplan and Norton report that on average, 95% of employees are unaware of the strategy. 

I nsufficient management capabilities

A study by the Economist found that “only 41% of respondents say their companies have a sufficient number of skilled personnel to implement high-priority strategic initiatives.” In the same study, only 18% reported prioritizing hiring people with the skills to drive strategy implementation. 

Lack of robust employee performance and development plans.

Kaplan and Norton report 70% of middle managers and over 90% of frontline employees have no link to the success or failure of execution. W. James McNerney, Jr. Chairman of 3M argued that by improving the average performance of every employee by 15%, irrespective of what his or her role is, a company can achieve and sustain consistently superior performance .

Joseph Hrebiniak, Emeritus management professor at Wharton warns that the strategic plan has to be reconciled with the organization’s talent. “If you don’t have what it takes, you’re going to have to get it, or modify the strategy to be more realistic.” Develop leaders , managers, and employees to meet the strategy.

Resistance to Change 

Change is threatening. In an organization, change often corresponds with budget and resource allocations representing shifts in power and influence for the leaders involved. For employees, fear and anxiety about their own competence, status, and job security also contribute to resistance.

group meeting at a long table discussing strategy

Strategic planning management is designed to address the factors that often lead to execution failure. As such, how strategic management is implemented is ultimately unique to each organization. The goal is to provide structure and discipline to ensure success while also being responsive to particular conditions and changing environments. 

How does strategic management address the failure points?

  • The organization and its people are set up to succeed.
  • Leadership is supported in keeping up momentum.
  • Everyone in the organization is aware of the strategic plan and how they contribute to it.
  • Progress to plan is communicated throughout the organization and to the board.
  • Metrics facilitate course correction.
  • Budgets enterprise-wide are based on strategy.
  • Cross-organization alignment as opposed to silos.
  • Robust employee performance and compensation plans are created.
  • Calls for commitment to training and education.
  • The right people are in the right jobs.

Developing and executing a successful strategy is hard work. Strategic management doesn’t solve everything.

  • Complex operations. Global companies with multiple people, multiple products, in multiple countries make enterprise-wide coordination complex.
  • Localized ecosystems. A more flexible approach is needed when execution depends on many outside players. For example, a large retailer enters a new market and negotiates terms and commitments with suppliers as they would in the U.S. If the suppliers refuse to play by those rules, the company has to reevaluate its strategy.
  • Power struggles. If CEO’s feel managed rather than supported, they will be resistant to an OSM.
  • Disempowerment. Possible resentment from middle management who may regard the OSM as taking away their autonomy.
  • Not-invented here. When strategy formulation and management is conducted by an outside group, employees may not buy in.

Tips for becoming an effective and efficient strategic manager

  • Build trust by focusing on how you can facilitate people’s success. Beware of acting in ways that cast you as a watchdog or the police.
  • In discussions around evaluation, lead from what’s going right and discourage blaming.
  • Have empathy for executives amid distracting issues and pressures. Do whatever you can to support the CEO.
  • Create a multiple outlet/multiple media communications plan to keep stakeholders up to date along the way.
  • Enlist trusted colleagues or advisors to give you support and perspective when you need to address complex and challenging situations.
  • Learn to think on two-time horizons to avoid becoming reactive during rapid change. Even with in-the-moment actions and initiatives, consider how they serve the North Star of the longer-term strategy, either through building capabilities or gaining useful insight. 

Coaching and leadership development opportunities:

  • Executive team coaching for the leadership team. Often leadership teams unwittingly find themselves in the weeds. Executive team coaching can help members to support one another in observing from a higher and more strategic vantage point while holding one another accountable for execution.
  • Action learning groups for leaders in cross-functional areas. Individual members bring project-specific strategic issues and opportunities to a common table for ideas, support, and accountability. They are crucibles for synergistic learning.
  • Periodic conferences for groups across the organization for updates and knowledge-sharing. Employees can give important feedback to leaders about how things are going.
  • Training leaders to be coaches of their teams.
  • Coaching emerging leaders , equipping them with skills to manage change as strategic planners.

woman sharing her plan on a whiteboard to another woman

Though companies have varying structures for implementing strategic management, having a discrete functional unit at the corporate level to drive execution activities is key. This case study on the Balanced Scorecard illustrates how strategic management comes into play.

After innovation successes in the 1990s, US automaker Chrysler was in trouble by 2000. High costs and competition led to a deficit of more than $5 billion.

DaimlerChrysler, the parent company, stepped in. Dieter Zetsche became the CEO and introduced the Balance Scorecard (BSC) as part of the turnaround strategy. Bill Russo, vice president of business strategy, and his unit were put in charge of managing the strategy.

First, this “office of strategy management” worked with the executive team to define the new strategy using the Balanced Scorecard as a framework to align and prioritize strategy initiatives. Their efforts produced a scorecard for the enterprise. This was vetted through senior leadership.

Next, the enterprise-wide scorecard cascaded down through the organization to business units and support units. Each created their own scorecards based on what local operations would need to do to support the larger strategy, creating alignment within the organization. Russo’s strategic management group collected and analyzed this data and created processes for the scorecards. 

Then the strategic management group led a communication rollout plan to over 90,000 employees. The strategic management group also set the agenda for monthly reviews and strategic planning budget supervision .

Finally, to keep momentum and raise critical issues, before management meetings Russo would brief Zetsche on issues emerging from the scorecard reporting so that things that needed management attention would be on the agenda. Following the meeting, he would follow-up and ensure proper communication was in place.

Throughout the process, the strategic management group was a central resource and clearing house for data: 

  • Served as a repository of ideas emerging through the organization
  • Supported Human Resources for training and education on the process.
  • Communicated strategy, targets and initiatives. 
  • Supported the business units with communications planning and ensuring clear and consistent messaging.

Optimizing your strategic planning management

With so many moving parts and considerations, managing strategic plans can seem daunting. But it is critical in order to see plans through and ensure actions align with goals. 

Try the strategies we’ve noted here as you build out and develop your next strategic plan. And remember to continually assess goals and objectives as time goes on.

New call-to-action

Meredith Betz

Betterup Fellow Coach, M.S.Ed, M.S.O.D.

4 reasons why you can't afford to skip out on succession planning

When managing direct reports, inclusive leadership matters, leader vs. manager: what's the difference, power versus authority, why the difference matters, the hard thing about becoming a people manager, top-down vs. bottom-up management: what is the best fit, what to get coaching on here’s what managers are saying, managers have a strong effect on team performance, for better or worse, reactive vs. proactive management styles: which one gets results, similar articles, everything you need to know about strategic leadership, what does the future of management look like, leadership versus management: how they benefit teams, your 6-step guide on how to make an action plan for management, a how-to guide for building an effective operating model, what is an action plan how to become a real-life action hero, strategic planning: read this before it's that time again, what is change management conquer it with this guide, strategic plan vs. work plan: what's the difference, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

3100 E 5th Street, Suite 350 Austin, TX 78702

  • Platform Overview
  • Integrations
  • Powered by AI
  • BetterUp Lead
  • BetterUp Manage™
  • BetterUp Care™
  • Sales Performance
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Case Studies
  • Why BetterUp?
  • Career Coaching
  • Communication Coaching
  • Life Coaching
  • News and Press
  • Leadership Team
  • Become a BetterUp Coach
  • BetterUp Labs
  • Center for Purpose & Performance
  • What is coaching?
  • Leadership Training
  • Business Coaching
  • Contact Support
  • Contact Sales
  • Privacy Policy
  • Acceptable Use Policy
  • Trust & Security
  • Cookie Preferences
  • Project planning |
  • What is strategy implementation? 6 key ...

What is strategy implementation? 6 key steps to success

Team Asana contributor image

Strategy implementation is the process of turning your strategic plan into action. Whether you’re executing a new marketing plan to increase sales or introducing a new work management software to increase efficiency—your plan is only as valuable as the implementation. In this article, we cover the pitfalls of strategy implementation and how you can avoid them. Plus check out different frameworks associated with this process to set you up for success.

Having a strategic plan is great, but unless you have the bandwidth, resources, and support to implement your plan it’s not going to drive actual change in your organization.

We’re going to cover the key steps of strategy implementation, including potential pitfalls and how you can avoid them, and introduce you to a few frameworks to help you successfully implement any strategy you’re currently working on.

The 6 key strategy implementation steps

Before you can implement your strategy you need to create a strategic plan .

Your strategic or implementation plan outlines the steps your team or organization needs to take in order to achieve a goal or objective. Your implementation plan is the roadmap to a successful strategy execution and should include the following steps:

Define your goals

Conduct proper research

Map out any risks

Schedule all milestones

Assign tasks

Allocate helpful resources

Once your strategic plan is set, it’s time to get it on the road! There are six steps to follow on your way to a successful implementation.

[inline illustration] 6 key strategy implementation steps (infographic)

Step 1: Set and communicate clear, strategic goals

The first step is where your strategic plan and your strategy implementation overlap.  

To implement a new strategy, you first must identify clear and attainable goals. As with all things, communication is key. Your goals should include your vision and mission statements , long-term goals , and KPIs . 

The clearer the picture, the easier the rest of your strategy implementation will be for your team and organization—simply because everyone will be working towards the same goals. 

Step 2: Engage your team

To implement your strategy both effectively and efficiently , you need to create focus and drive accountability. There are a few ways in which you can keep your team engaged throughout the implementation process:

Determine roles and responsibilities early on. Use a RACI matrix to clarify your teammate’s roles and ensure that there are no responsibility gaps.

Delegate work effectively . While it can be tempting to have your eyes on everything, micromanagement will only hold you back. Once you’ve defined everyone’s roles and responsibilities, trust that your team will execute their tasks according to the implementation plan.

Communicate with your team and ensure that everyone knows how their individual work contributes to the project. This will keep everyone motivated and on track.

Step 3: Execute the strategic plan

Allocate necessary resources —like funding for strategic or operational budgets—so your team can put the strategic plan into action. If you don’t have the right resources you won’t be able to achieve your strategic plan, so this should be a top priority. Here’s how you can ensure that your team has the resources they need:

Start with the end in mind to effectively align your project’s objectives, key deliverables, milestones, and timeline.

Identify available resources like your team’s capacity, your available budget, required tools or skills, and any other unconventional resources

Define a clear project scope so you know exactly what your project needs when.

Share your project plan with everyone involved in the implementation process using a work management tool.

The better built out your strategic plan is, the easier it will be to implement it.

Step 4: Stay agile

You’ll inevitably run into issues as you begin implementing your strategy. When this happens, shift your goals or your approach to work around them. 

Create a schedule so you can frequently update the status of your goals or implementation strategy changes. Depending on the strategy you’re implementing, you can create weekly, monthly, or quarterly project status reports . Share these updates with your external stakeholders, as well as your internal team, to keep everyone in the loop.

Having a central source of truth where you can update your team in real time will help you streamline this process. Asana’s work management software allows your team to coordinate projects, tasks, and processes in real time but also gives you the freedom to get work done asynchronously —providing everyone with the visibility they need to understand who’s doing what.

Step 5: Get closure

Once you implement the strategy, connect with everyone involved to confirm that their work feels complete. Implementing a strategy isn’t like a puzzle that’s finished when the last piece is set. It’s like planting a garden that continues to grow and change even when you think you’re done with your work.

Getting closure from your team will be the second to last milestone of your strategy implementation and is a crucial step toward completion.

Step 6: Reflect

Conduct a post-mortem or retrospective to reflect on the implemented strategy, as well as evaluate the success of the implementation process and the strategy itself. This step is a chance to uncover lessons learned for upcoming projects and strategies which will allow you to avoid potential pitfalls and embrace new opportunities in the future.

What you need to implement a strategy

No matter how well thought out your strategy is, you’ll need these five key components to successfully implement any strategy.

[inline illustration] 5 components to support strategy implementation (infographic)

You’ll need a team that not only understands the strategy you want to implement but also has the skills and bandwidth to support you. Appoint, hire, and train the right people for the job and ensure that the competencies needed to succeed are present in your project team.

quotation mark

Asana’s Customer Success team was invaluable to our implementation process. They took the time to understand our business and showed us how to create practical workflows and processes to get the most out of Asana. We couldn’t have done it without them.”

Effective resource allocation is one of the most important parts in strategy implementation. Resources can be both financial (e.g., cost of labor) and non-financial (e.g., time to implement strategy).

Organization

Everyone in your organization needs to know what their responsibilities are so they can be accountable for their part in implementing the strategy. This also means that the chain of command has to be defined and communicated so everyone knows who to communicate with during the implementation process.

The tools, capabilities, and systems you’ve put in place are another key component. You have to know what the functions of each of these systems are and how they will support your strategic management process during and after the implementation. 

The final key component is the organizational culture within your company. Rolling out new strategies can be confusing and stressful for teams. Ensuring that everyone knows what they need to know and feels valued and included is crucial for a successful and effective implementation.

McKinsey’s 7S framework

McKinsey & Company is a world-renowned management consulting firm that, among other things, created a framework of seven factors needed to implement a strategy successfully.

The factors can be split into hard elements (strategy, structure, and systems) and soft elements (shared values, skills, style, and staff). While the hard elements are easy to identify and influence directly, the soft elements are less tangible and typically influenced by the company culture versus a manager or other direct contact.

Let’s take a quick look at the McKinsey 7S Model, beginning with the hard elements:

Strategy: Your organization’s plan to establish or maintain a competitive advantage over others in the field

Structure: Your company’s organizational structure

Systems: The day-to-day procedures and activities performed by your teams

These are the soft elements of the framework:

Style: The leadership style in your organization

Staff: Your team and their general capabilities

Skills: Your team’s competencies and skills

Shared values: Your organization's core values

You can apply this framework to your strategy implementation process by looking at your organization’s shared values first and ensuring that they align with your hard elements. Next, identify how well your hard elements support one another and where changes could improve their interaction. After you’ve established that, do the same for your soft elements.

This analysis helps you identify elements that are working well and elements that need improvement. Applying this framework to your strategic plan and strategy implementation process helps you get a better feel for how well your organization can implement change.

The three Cs of implementing strategy

Business consultant and author Scott Edinger coined the three Cs of implementing strategy —clarity, communication, and cascade. They’re the three steps you should keep in mind if you want to implement your strategy successfully.

[inline illustration] The three Cs of implementing strategy (infographic)

Let’s take a closer look at what they represent.

Clarify your strategy. Ideally, strategy was well received in the boardroom and your stakeholders and executives are on board. However, if it’s not clearly defined, you may lose your mid-level and frontline team members along the way. Your team can only implement a strategy they understand, so be clear with what your goals and strategic objectives are.

Communicate your strategy. A poster, announcement, or newsletter won’t be enough to communicate a new strategy to your organization. Diversify your communication strategy to ensure that teams know what’s going on and create opportunities to ask questions so everyone feels like they’re part of the process.

Cascade your strategy. A well implemented strategy cascades through your entire organization. Involve your organization’s managers and ensure that they understand the strategy so they can forward relevant information, tactics, and processes to their teams. While you may have informed your organization during the communication stage, this step is crucial in aligning every last teammate with your new strategy.

Next, let’s have a look at some of the challenges you’ll encounter during strategy implementation.

Strategy implementation pitfalls and solutions

A big undertaking like the implementation of a new strategy comes with its fair share of obstacles. Below are four of the most common pitfalls you’ll encounter when implementing a strategy plus a few tips on how you can create solutions for your team. 

1.  Overwhelming or meaningless strategic plan

Problem: If the strategic implementation lacks meaning and potential or if there is an overwhelming number of puzzle pieces to consider, it can really put a wrench in your implementation. 

Solution: Use SMART goals to ensure that your strategic plan is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. This framework will ensure that your strategic plan is both meaningful and possible to implement.

2. No implementation in sight

Problem: It’s great to have a strategic plan but without the resources and support from upper management, the implementation may never happen.

Solution: Your strategic plan should include clear goals, consequences, and requirements to inspire the actual implementation of your strategy. The clearer the document, the easier it will be to get the resources needed to turn it into action.

3. Lack of communication and ownership

Problem: A team that’s not 100% sure what the strategy actually is and doesn’t feel confident about their respective tasks can make your implementation process come to a halt before it’s even begun.

Solution: Clearly define each team member's responsibilities and delegate any relevant work. This gives team members a sense of ownership over the outcome of the strategy implementation. Ensure that your teammates have the authority and resources to execute their tasks.

4. Lack of accountability and empowerment

Problem: Low visibility and a lack of accountability can make your team feel helpless. 

Solution: Schedule regular strategy review and team meetings to discuss each team member’s progress, issues that are arising, and strategy shifts that can contribute to the success of your implementation. Track the progress to give your team a sense of accomplishment whenever they check off another goal they’ve met.

As long as you’re aware of the challenges, you can tackle them head on and avoid unnecessary setbacks.

Plan, implement, celebrate

Change isn’t easy but in order for your team to grow, it’s crucial that your organization does too.

Whether you’re in the midst of developing your strategic plan with a small project team or you’re already communicating your strategy to the entire organization, reliable project management software is critical in ensuring that everyone has access to the resources they need.

And once the strategy is successfully implemented, don’t forget to give yourself and your team a pat on the back. After all, celebrating milestones like these is important too!

Sources: Harvard Business School | MindTools | OnStrategy

Related resources

management strategy in business plan

Sales and operations planning (S&OP): A project manager’s guide

management strategy in business plan

What is stakeholder analysis and why is it important?

management strategy in business plan

Scope management plan: What is it and how to create one

management strategy in business plan

7 causes of content calendar chaos—and how to solve them

  • Search Search Please fill out this field.
  • Building Your Business
  • Becoming an Owner
  • Business Plans

How To Write the Management Section of a Business Plan

Susan Ward wrote about small businesses for The Balance for 18 years. She has run an IT consulting firm and designed and presented courses on how to promote small businesses.

management strategy in business plan

Ownership Structure

Internal management team, external management resources, human resources, frequently asked questions (faqs).

When developing a business plan , the 'management section' describes your management team, staff, resources, and how your business ownership is structured. This section should not only describe who's on your management team but how each person's skill set will contribute to your bottom line. In this article, we will detail exactly how to compose and best highlight your management team.

Key Takeaways

  • The management section of a business plan helps show how your management team and company are structured.
  • The first section shows the ownership structure, which might be a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation.
  • The internal management section shows the department heads, including sales, marketing, administration, and production.
  • The external management resources help back up your internal management and include an advisory board and consultants.
  • The human resources section contains staffing requirements—part-time or full-time—skills needed for employees and the costs.

This section outlines the legal structure of your business. It may only be a single sentence if your business is a sole proprietorship. If your business is a partnership or a corporation, it can be longer. You want to be sure you explain who holds what percentage of ownership in the company.

The internal management section should describe the business management categories relevant to your business, identify who will have responsibility for each category, and then include a short profile highlighting each person's skills.

The primary business categories of sales, marketing , administration, and production usually work for many small businesses. If your business has employees, you will also need a human resources section. You may also find that your company needs additional management categories to fit your unique circumstances.

It's not necessary to have a different person in charge of each category; some key management people often fill more than one role. Identify the key managers in your business and explain what functions and experience each team member will serve. You may wish to present this as an organizational chart in your business plan, although the list format is also appropriate.

Along with this section, you should include the complete resumés of each management team member (including your own). Follow this with an explanation of how each member will be compensated and their benefits package, and describe any profit-sharing plans that may apply.

If there are any contracts that relate directly to your management team members, such as work contracts or non-competition agreements, you should include them in an Appendix to your business plan.

While external management resources are often overlooked when writing a business plan , using these resources effectively can make the difference between the success or failure of your managers. Think of these external resources as your internal management team's backup. They give your business credibility and an additional pool of expertise.

Advisory Board

An Advisory Board can increase consumer and investor confidence, attract talented employees by showing a commitment to company growth and bring a diversity of contributions. If you choose to have an Advisory Board , list all the board members in this section, and include a bio and all relevant specializations. If you choose your board members carefully, the group can compensate for the niche forms of expertise that your internal managers lack.

When selecting your board members, look for people who are genuinely interested in seeing your business do well and have the patience and time to provide sound advice.

Recently retired executives or managers, other successful entrepreneurs, and/or vendors would be good choices for an Advisory Board.

Professional Services

Professional Services should also be highlighted in the external management resources section. Describe all the external professional advisors that your business will use, such as accountants, bankers, lawyers, IT consultants, business consultants, and/or business coaches. These professionals provide a web of advice and support outside your internal management team that can be invaluable in making management decisions and your new business a success .

The last point you should address in the management section of your business plan is your human resources needs. The trick to writing about human resources is to be specific. To simply write, "We'll need more people once we get up and running," isn't sufficient. Follow this list:

  • Detail how many employees your business will need at each stage and what they will cost.
  • Describe exactly how your business's human resources needs can be met. Will it be best to have employees, or should you operate with contract workers or freelancers ? Do you need full-time or part-time staff or a mix of both?
  • Outline your staffing requirements, including a description of the specific skills that the people working for you will need to possess.
  • Calculate your labor costs. Decide the number of employees you will need and how many customers each employee can serve. For example, if it takes one employee to serve 150 customers, and you forecast 1,500 customers in your first year, your business will need 10 employees.
  • Determine how much each employee will receive and total the salary cost for all your employees.
  • Add to this the cost of  Workers' Compensation Insurance  (mandatory for most businesses) and the cost of any other employee benefits, such as company-sponsored medical and dental plans.

After you've listed the points above, describe how you will find the staff your business needs and how you will train them. Your description of staff recruitment should explain whether or not sufficient local labor is available and how you will recruit staff.

When you're writing about staff training, you'll want to include as many specifics as possible. What specific training will your staff undergo? What ongoing training opportunities will you provide your employees?

Even if the plan for your business is to start as a sole proprietorship, you should include a section on potential human resources demands as a way to demonstrate that you've thought about the staffing your business may require as it grows.

Business plans are about the future and the hypothetical challenges and successes that await. It's worth visualizing and documenting the details of your business so that the materials and network around your dream can begin to take shape.

What is the management section of a business plan?

The 'management section' describes your management team, staff, resources, and how your business ownership is structured.

What are the 5 sections of a business plan?

A business plan provides a road map showing your company's goals and how you'll achieve them. The five sections of a business plan are as follows:

  • The  market analysis  outlines the demand for your product or service.
  • The  competitive analysis  section shows your competition's strengths and weaknesses and your strategy for gaining market share.
  • The management plan outlines your ownership structure, the management team, and staffing requirements.
  • The  operating plan  details your business location and the facilities, equipment, and supplies needed to operate.
  • The  financial plan  shows the map to financial success and the sources of funding, such as bank loans or investors.

SCORE. " Why Small Businesses Should Consider Workers’ Comp Insurance ."

  • Business Essentials
  • Leadership & Management
  • Credential of Leadership, Impact, and Management in Business (CLIMB)
  • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
  • *New* Digital Transformation
  • Finance & Accounting
  • Business in Society
  • For Organizations
  • Support Portal
  • Media Coverage
  • Founding Donors
  • Leadership Team

management strategy in business plan

  • Harvard Business School →
  • HBS Online →
  • Business Insights →

Business Insights

Harvard Business School Online's Business Insights Blog provides the career insights you need to achieve your goals and gain confidence in your business skills.

  • Career Development
  • Communication
  • Decision-Making
  • Earning Your MBA
  • Negotiation
  • News & Events
  • Productivity
  • Staff Spotlight
  • Student Profiles
  • Work-Life Balance
  • Alternative Investments
  • Business Analytics
  • Business Strategy
  • Business and Climate Change
  • Design Thinking and Innovation
  • Digital Marketing Strategy
  • Disruptive Strategy
  • Economics for Managers
  • Entrepreneurship Essentials
  • Financial Accounting
  • Global Business
  • Launching Tech Ventures
  • Leadership Principles
  • Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability
  • Leading with Finance
  • Management Essentials
  • Negotiation Mastery
  • Organizational Leadership
  • Power and Influence for Positive Impact
  • Strategy Execution
  • Sustainable Business Strategy
  • Sustainable Investing
  • Winning with Digital Platforms

Why Is Strategic Planning Important?

Above view of team creating a strategic plan

  • 06 Oct 2020

Do you know what your organization’s strategy is? How much time do you dedicate to developing that strategy each month?

If your answers are on the low side, you’re not alone. According to research from Bridges Business Consultancy , 48 percent of leaders spend less than one day per month discussing strategy.

It’s no wonder, then, that 48 percent of all organizations fail to meet at least half of their strategic targets. Before an organization can reap the rewards of its business strategy, planning must take place to ensure its strategy remains agile and executable .

Here’s a look at what strategic planning is and how it can benefit your organization.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business's intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organization’s goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning.

It’s important to highlight that strategic planning is an ongoing process—not a one-time meeting. In the online course Disruptive Strategy , Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen notes that in a study of HBS graduates who started businesses, 93 percent of those with successful strategies evolved and pivoted away from their original strategic plans.

“Most people think of strategy as an event, but that’s not the way the world works,” Christensen says. “When we run into unanticipated opportunities and threats, we have to respond. Sometimes we respond successfully; sometimes we don’t. But most strategies develop through this process. More often than not, the strategy that leads to success emerges through a process that’s at work 24/7 in almost every industry.”

Strategic planning requires time, effort, and continual reassessment. Given the proper attention, it can set your business on the right track. Here are three benefits of strategic planning.

Related: 4 Ways to Develop Your Strategic Thinking Skills

Benefits of Strategic Planning

1. create one, forward-focused vision.

Strategy touches every employee and serves as an actionable way to reach your company’s goals.

One significant benefit of strategic planning is that it creates a single, forward-focused vision that can align your company and its shareholders. By making everyone aware of your company’s goals, how and why those goals were chosen, and what they can do to help reach them, you can create an increased sense of responsibility throughout your organization.

This can also have trickle-down effects. For instance, if a manager isn’t clear on your organization’s strategy or the reasoning used to craft it, they could make decisions on a team level that counteract its efforts. With one vision to unite around, everyone at your organization can act with a broader strategy in mind.

2. Draw Attention to Biases and Flaws in Reasoning

The decisions you make come with inherent bias. Taking part in the strategic planning process forces you to examine and explain why you’re making each decision and back it up with data, projections, or case studies, thus combatting your cognitive biases.

A few examples of cognitive biases are:

  • The recency effect: The tendency to select the option presented most recently because it’s fresh in your mind
  • Occam’s razor bias: The tendency to assume the most obvious decision to be the best decision
  • Inertia bias: The tendency to select options that allow you to think, feel, and act in familiar ways

One cognitive bias that may be more difficult to catch in the act is confirmation bias . When seeking to validate a particular viewpoint, it's the tendency to only pay attention to information that supports that viewpoint.

If you’re crafting a strategic plan for your organization and know which strategy you prefer, enlist others with differing views and opinions to help look for information that either proves or disproves the idea.

Combating biases in strategic decision-making requires effort and dedication from your entire team, and it can make your organization’s strategy that much stronger.

Related: 3 Group Decision-Making Techniques for Success

3. Track Progress Based on Strategic Goals

Having a strategic plan in place can enable you to track progress toward goals. When each department and team understands your company’s larger strategy, their progress can directly impact its success, creating a top-down approach to tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) .

By planning your company’s strategy and defining its goals, KPIs can be determined at the organizational level. These goals can then be extended to business units, departments, teams, and individuals. This ensures that every level of your organization is aligned and can positively impact your business’s KPIs and performance.

It’s important to remember that even though your strategy might be far-reaching and structured, it must remain agile. As Christensen asserts in Disruptive Strategy , a business’s strategy needs to evolve with the challenges and opportunities it encounters. Be prepared to pivot your KPIs as goals shift and communicate the reasons for change to your organization.

Which HBS Online Strategy Course is Right for You? | Download Your Free Flowchart

Improve Your Strategic Planning Skills

Strategic planning can benefit your organization’s vision, execution, and progress toward goals. If strategic planning is a skill you’d like to improve, online courses can provide the knowledge and techniques needed to lead your team and organization.

Strategy courses can range from primers on key concepts (such as Economics for Managers ), to deep-dives on strategy frameworks (such as Disruptive Strategy ), to coursework designed to help you strategize for a specific organizational goal (such as Sustainable Business Strategy ).

Learning how to craft an effective, compelling strategic plan can enable you to not only invest in your career but provide lasting value to your organization.

Do you want to formulate winning strategies for your organization? Explore our portfolio of online strategy courses and download the free flowchart to determine which is the best fit for you and your goals.

management strategy in business plan

About the Author

ProjectPractical.com

8 Business Management Strategies Used by Top Managers

Editorial Team

management strategy in business plan

A great manager is someone who can implement the best business management practices and motivate their teams to achieve set goals. Business management consists of the process through which businesses get their employees to produce the best results using the least effort and resources available to them. Without an effective strategy, your business can’t survive. Good business management involves leveraging strategies that have been proven to work excellently and produce positive results. The difference between failing and becoming successful may just be a matter of using the right strategy. Here are some key business management strategies that top managers use to transform a struggling business into a productive and profitable business. 

1. Employee Engagement 

Dissatisfied employees don’t care about performing their work correctly or as expected. They only think about getting their paycheck and promoting their own interests. As a manager, one of the things you should do to effectively manage your business is to ensure continuous employee engagement. Employee engagement basically the emotional commitment that a worker has to a company and its goals. It is this commitment that makes employees care about their work and organization. Engaged workers don’t perform their work to get a paycheck, qualify for the next promotion, or fulfill their own interests. But they work towards achieving the goals of the organization. Moreover, they are not only emotionally committed but also loyal to the organization. 

Top managers capitalize on employee engagement to manage their businesses effectively in order to thrive and survive. By engaging employees, you will influence your workers to care about your business vision. Engaged employees are not just productive and enthusiastic. They are also less passive such that they become responsible and attract fresh talent to your business.

Successful managers ensure employee engagement by assigning everyone the appropriate role, training employees, checking in often, and holding regular discussions about engagement. Besides, they improve employee engagement by ensuring that their employees know what is expected of them, have necessary resources, and the workplace supports employees to thrive in their roles.

2. Rewarding Employee Performance

Top managers recognize that rewarding employee performance is essential in improving productivity and maximizing profits. As such, they usually establish a reward system for employees. This system refers to programs established by an organization to reward employee efforts and commitment. A strategic employee rewards system mainly addresses four areas: appreciation, recognition, benefits, and compensation. No one likes it when their effort or work is not recognized. When managers reward their employees for their hard work, dedication, and achievement, they make them feel valued.

Some managers fail because they overlook the positive impact of rewarding employee performance during their business management training. But successful top managers use reward systems to motivate employees to be more productive and achieve greater success. In doing so, they gain a competitive edge and keep their companies on the top. There are different ways that these managers use to reward workers for their excellent work. Some common forms of rewards are money, off days, recognition for a job well done, end of year parties, and a trip to a specific destination.

But aside from the ones mentioned above, there are other creative ways to reward employees. For example, investing in the employee’s continued education through leadership courses and training can also be an excellent way to appreciate all their hard work. This can help demonstrate that the manager is interested in their employee’s career development. 

Another method of rewarding great employees for outstanding performance is to publish their accomplishments on an employee appreciation board. This allows a manager to present their excellent work so other employees can praise and appreciate them, resulting in improved self-confidence. 

By doing all these things, a manager can offer rewards to top-performing employees without any hassle. Since finding new workers and training them effectively takes time and is costly, top managers retain employees by rewarding them for their great performance. Rewards offer employees a sense of purpose and meaning to continue doing the best at work. There are no set standard rewards for employees. So, each manager sets rewards based on the nature of the work performed as well as the needs of the workers.

3. Being Accessible

Being accessible to both employees and customers is another business management strategy used by top managers. Accessibility plays a huge role in the performance and productivity of employees as well as addressing customer issues and concerns. If workers and customers feel that their manager is available to discuss problems with them as they arise, they develop the sense that their manager is caring and performing a great job. Otherwise, if a manager isn’t accessible, they feel that he/she doesn’t care. Moreover, they develop the sense that their manager isn’t focused on the work at hand. 

Top managers make their employees and customers know they are accessible in different ways. They put in place multiple channels through which they can be reached. This could mean making their cell phone number known to workers and customers and ensuring to carry their cell phone every time. Checking emails regularly is another way that top managers use to know problems and concerns sent to them. Managers with many channels through which people can contact then appear more accessible. Some managers are intentionally unavailable because they dislike the idea that clients might approach them with inconsequential or seemingly small problems. 

4. Being Vulnerable

Vulnerability is a great tool in the toolkit of any emotionally intelligent top manager. Courageous managers leverage their “woundedness” into genuine innovation, connections, and learning. Successful executive managers do not lead as anonymous figures in the lives of their employees. Rather, they manage their businesses by getting to know their workers and engage with them. In fact, they consider vulnerability as important in team dynamics. This is because teams can’t build trust without being able to speak openly and convey their ideas to their managers. Employees feel more comfortable when they work with a vulnerable leader. In particular, they are sensitive to signals of trustworthiness in their managers.

A servant leader, for instance, who embraces value-based leadership and authenticity yields more constructive and positive behavior in workers. With such leadership, employees develop a greater feeling of trust and hope in both their managers and the organization. Trust in a leader boost employee performance. This is because when employees remember that their boss resonates with them, they develop strong social connections and positive emotions with him/her. But why do some managers fear being vulnerable?

Well, some are afraid that employees will who they really are or they will discover a vulnerable or soft spot and take advantage of it. But successful top managers do not think this way because it isn’t necessarily true. Instead, they embrace vulnerability since it makes their workers see them as human beings. That way, employees get closer to them and become more open. These managers also find it easy to share advice. 

5. Staying Committed

Although successful top managers have different personal attributes, they excel in remarking, honoring, and making commitments. Managerial commitments can take different forms including public statements, hiring decisions,  making partnerships , and capital investments. However, each of these types of commitments exerts enduring and immediate influence on a business. The commitment of a leader shapes the identity of a business. Some managers are unaware that commitments are very powerful. When managers lack commitment, they cause lasting constraints on their organizations and operations. This makes it very hard for them to respond to changes in competition and markets. 

Being committed is one of the effective business management strategies. Commitments are a means through which managers ensure that businesses secure the resources they need to survive. Employees, customers, and investors are likely to shun any business whose leadership isn’t committed.   Business strategy execution is not always an easy task. Commitment is not just necessary but also a powerful tool that helps organizations to beat the competition. Committed top managers influence their team members to trust one another. In doing so, they eliminate conflict and stifle productivity.

Through commitment, managers encourage their workers to be devoted to their work. In most cases, employees emulate what they see their leaders do. With this understanding, successful executive managers are always committed to their work. They ensure to perform their responsibilities as required. Thus, commitment is a powerful business management strategy that can turn around productivity and sales.

On the other hand, staying committed means raising a leader’s awareness and generating the responsibility of taking necessary business actions. When a leader is committed, they can reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, helping them think differently and make decisions that deliver more positive outcomes. 

However, staying committed to that purpose may take time and effort. This is where executive coaching enters the picture. It helps executives uncover their leadership potential, allowing them to influence employees to get the jobs done. Also, executive coaching helps leaders learn to consider other perspectives to understand behavioral patterns in work necessary to implement the desired changes within a certain period. 

6. Seeking Clarity

Lack of alignment among executives is a common problem in many companies. These leaders either do not work towards the visions of their companies or don’t understand what those visions are. But successful top managers ensure effective business management by seeking clarity. They ensure alignment with the core principles of their companies by asking these questions:

  • Who must do what?
  • What is most important, right now?
  • How will we succeed?
  • What do we do?
  • How do we behave?
  • Why do we exist?

Businesses cannot achieve success if managers don’t develop and share a clear sense of vision as well as business values and strategic goals. Without clarity, a business lacks direction and purpose. Successful executives achieve clarity and run their businesses smoothly by defining issues mediately they arise without hesitation. This involves knowing the objectives and goals they have set for a sales season or project and focusing on them to the end.

They achieve success by outlining the goals they aim to achieve in advance and doing a continuous assessment on whether they are achieving them. If not, they quickly and decisively address hindrances. So, if they are not reaching their goals, or what they planned isn’t being met, they always identify underlying issues and come up with remedies that will get back their businesses as usual. Thus, seeking clarity allows managers to shift immediately based on the market to keep their businesses running smoothly.

7. Facilitating Training

The role of a manager isn’t necessarily to conduct the actual training but instead to facilitate employee training. Successful executives do not assume that someone else in the company will make sure that training is done. Rather, they engage and work with direct reports, set training objectives, and acquire resources required to offer training. Besides, they identify or create development opportunities for their workers and assist them to see the value of improving their abilities. 

With proper  training video creation , managers can give their employees a better sense of support, resulting in increased job satisfaction. They can also provide them with an opportunity to gain skills that can help enhance efficiency and productivity, increase engagement, and encourage leadership among their employees. On the other hand, training may cover different topics including customer service, effective communication, process efficiency, and project management. Managers play an important role in transferring skills and knowledge from textbooks to on-the-job tasks, ensuring a comprehensive pretraining, actual training, and post-training process.

Effective top managers understand that a positive learning culture originates from the top. It has much to do with their attitudes towards training. This trickles down to lower-level managers and ultimately to other employees. So, if a manager disregards training, employees will do the same. To ensure there is continuous training and development, successful executives ensure that employees understand the benefit of training both to their career as well as the business. Besides, these managers know why and how training should be properly aligned with the objectives of the company.

With proper training, managers can give their employees a better sense of support, resulting in increased job satisfaction. They can also provide them with an opportunity to gain skills that can help enhance efficiency and productivity, increase engagement, and encourage leadership among their employees. 

On the other hand, training may cover different topics including customer service, effective communication, process efficiency, and project management. Managers play an important role in transferring skills and knowledge from textbooks to on job tasks. This may take different phases including pretraining, actual training, and post-training. During pretraining, managers set learning goals and expected outcomes. This is followed by actual learning. After training, managers follow up with employees to ascertain they are applying what they have learned.

8. Holding Regular Meetings

No process, activity, or action is more central to establishing healthy business than holding meetings regularly. Top managers become successful by:

  • Holding separate meetings for strategic and tactical business planning
  • Ensuring that there is adequate time is allocated for debating, resolving as well as seeking clarification on major issues their business
  • Assessing a tactical agenda after reviewing its progress against goals
  • Meeting with employees quarterly outside the company to assess industry and market trends

Meetings offer a company a regular forum for planning, seeking clarification, reviewing whether activities are aligned to strategic goals, and solving problems. Besides, they allow employees to realign principles and offer direction on business practices. To succeed in managing businesses effectively in the modern competitive world, top managers must ensure to meet regularly to plan effectively in order to make a meaningful impact in their area of specialty.

As a manager, meetings will help you to develop authentic connections with junior employees. Moreover, meeting your employees regularly helps to know the challenges they encounter every day. This way, you gain a better understanding of what your workers encounter every day. That enables you to care for them better by coming up with solutions that will make their work less challenging.

Top managers become successful by making deliberate and well-thought-out move to position their businesses strategically in the market. These are some of the main business management strategies they use to ensure that their organizations are running smoothly. Most importantly, they use them consistently to realize positive results. Managers cannot succeed in navigating their businesses through everyday challenges without relying on these and other proven strategies. If your business is struggling, it’s never too late to try out these strategies. 

  • 10 Business Process Improvement Best Practices
  • Business Writing Skills For Project Managers
  • 11 Common Mistakes Student Entrepreneurs Make
  • 4 Ways To Increase Sales In 2022

most recent

Mobile Device Upgrades And Disposal

Tips & Guides

How to effectively plan for mobile device upgrades and disposal.

Smart Contract Vulnerabilities

Smart Contract Vulnerabilities & How to Prevent Them

How Can PDF Files Be Weaponized By Cybercriminals

How Can PDF Files Be Weaponized By Cybercriminals? A Brief Primer

© 2024 Copyright ProjectPractical.com

SharpSheets

Property Management Business Plan PDF Example

Avatar photo

  • February 25, 2024
  • Business Plan

the business plan template for a property management business

Creating a comprehensive business plan is crucial for launching and running a successful property management business. This plan serves as your roadmap, detailing your vision, operational strategies, and financial plan. It helps establish your property management business’s identity, navigate the competitive market, and secure funding for growth.

This article not only breaks down the critical components of a property management business plan, but also provides an example of a business plan to help you craft your own.

Whether you’re an experienced entrepreneur or new to the real estate industry, this guide, complete with a business plan example, lays the groundwork for turning your property management business concept into reality. Let’s dive in!

Our property management business plan is designed to cover all essential aspects needed for a comprehensive strategy. It outlines the property management operations, marketing strategy, market environment, competitors, management team, and financial forecasts.

  • Executive Summary: Offers an overview of the property management business concept, market analysis, management, and financial strategy.
  • Services & Fees: Details the range of property management services offered, including tenant placement, maintenance coordination, and financial administration, along with a clear breakdown of the fee structure for each service.
  • Key Stats: Shares industry size, growth trends, and relevant statistics for the property management market.
  • Key Trends: Highlights recent trends affecting the property management sector, such as technological advancements and urbanization.
  • Key Competitors: Analyzes main competitors in the area and how the business differentiates from them in terms of service quality and technological innovation.
  • SWOT: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis.
  • Marketing Plan: Strategies for promoting the property management services to attract and retain property owners and investors.
  • Timeline: Key milestones and objectives from start-up through the first year of operation.
  • Management: Information on who manages the property management business and their roles.
  • Financial Plan: Projects the business’s financial performance, including revenue, profits, and expected expenses.

the business plan template for a property management business

Property Management Business Plan

Download an expert-built 30+ slides Powerpoint business plan template

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary introduces your property management business plan, providing a succinct overview of your company and its services. It should detail your market positioning, the range of property management services you offer, including residential, commercial, or specialized properties you manage, its location, size, and an outline of day-to-day operations.

This section should also discuss how your property management business will integrate into the local real estate market, including the number of direct competitors within the area, identifying who they are, along with your company’s unique selling points that differentiate it from these competitors. This could include specialized services, exceptional customer service, innovative technology use, or strong community ties.

Furthermore, you should include information about the management and co-founding team, detailing their roles and contributions to the company’s success. Experience in real estate, business management, or specific property management skills could be highlighted here.

Additionally, a summary of your financial projections, including revenue and profits over the next five years, should be presented here to provide a clear picture of your company’s financial plan. This may include growth strategies, potential market expansion, and plans for scaling operations to meet market demands.

Make sure to cover here _ Business Overview _ Market Overview _ Management Team _ Financial Plan

Property Management Business executive summary1

Dive deeper into Executive Summary

Business Overview

Detail the range of property management services offered, from tenant screening and leasing to maintenance, repairs, and financial reporting. Outline your pricing strategy, ensuring it reflects the quality and comprehensiveness of services provided and aligns with the market you’re targeting.

Highlight any value-added services, such as 24/7 emergency response, online tenant and owner portals, or energy efficiency programs, that differentiate your business from competitors, encouraging long-term contracts and client loyalty.

Business Plan_Property Rental properties

Market Overview

Industry size & growth.

In the Market Overview of your property management business plan, start by examining the size of the property management industry and its growth potential.

This analysis is crucial for understanding the market’s scope and identifying expansion opportunities, such as emerging real estate markets, shifts in residential and commercial property ownership, and the increasing demand for professional property management services due to the complexity of managing properties.

Key market trends

Proceed to discuss recent market trends, such as the growing importance of technology in property management, including the use of property management software for efficiency, the rise of smart home technology in residential properties, and the emphasis on sustainable and green building practices.

For example, highlight the demand for services that cater to energy-efficient buildings, the integration of smart home devices in property management, and the increasing expectation for online tenant services and communications.

Key competitors

Then, consider the competitive landscape, which includes a range of property management companies from large national firms to local boutique agencies, as well as self-managed properties by owners.

For example, emphasize what makes your business distinctive, whether it’s through superior customer service, innovative use of technology, specialized services for certain types of properties (like luxury residential, commercial, or vacation rentals), or a strong focus on community and tenant relations.

Make sure to cover here _ Industry size & growth _ Key market trends _ Key competitors

Property Management Business market overview

Dive deeper into Key competitors

First, conduct a SWOT analysis for the property management business, highlighting Strengths (such as experienced management team and comprehensive property management solutions), Weaknesses (including potential scalability issues or limited market presence), Opportunities (for example, expanding real estate markets and increasing demand for rental properties), and Threats (such as regulatory changes affecting property management or economic factors impacting real estate investments).

Marketing Plan

Next, develop a marketing strategy that outlines how to attract and retain property owners and investors through targeted advertising, competitive service offerings, an engaging online presence, and involvement in local real estate communities. Focus on demonstrating your company’s value proposition, such as reducing property owners’ operational burdens, maximizing rental income, and maintaining high tenant satisfaction levels.

Finally, create a detailed timeline that outlines critical milestones for the property management business’s establishment, marketing initiatives, client portfolio growth, and service expansion objectives. This timeline should ensure the business progresses with clear direction and purpose, setting achievable goals for short-term wins and long-term growth.

Make sure to cover here _ SWOT _ Marketing Plan _ Timeline

Property Management Business strategy

Dive deeper into SWOT

Dive deeper into Marketing Plan

The Management section focuses on the property management business’s management and their direct roles in daily operations and strategic direction. This part is crucial for understanding who is responsible for making key decisions and driving the property management business towards its financial and operational goals.

For your property management business plan, list the core team members, their specific responsibilities, and how their expertise supports the business.

Property Management Business management

Financial Plan

The Financial Plan section is a comprehensive analysis of your financial projections for revenue, expenses, and profitability. It lays out your property management business’s approach to securing funding, managing cash flow, and achieving breakeven.

This section typically includes detailed forecasts for the first 5 years of operation, highlighting expected revenue, operating costs and capital expenditures.

For your property management business plan, provide a snapshot of your financial statement (profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow statement), as well as your key assumptions (e.g. number of customers and prices, expenses, etc.).

Make sure to cover here _ Profit and Loss _ Cash Flow Statement _ Balance Sheet _ Use of Funds

Property Management Business financial plan

Privacy Overview

Everything that you need to know to start your own business. From business ideas to researching the competition.

Practical and real-world advice on how to run your business — from managing employees to keeping the books.

Our best expert advice on how to grow your business — from attracting new customers to keeping existing customers happy and having the capital to do it.

Entrepreneurs and industry leaders share their best advice on how to take your company to the next level.

  • Business Ideas
  • Human Resources
  • Business Financing
  • Growth Studio
  • Ask the Board

Looking for your local chamber?

Interested in partnering with us?

Start » strategy, 9 steps to creating a procurement process for your small business.

An effective procurement strategy is the foundation for implementation success. Learn how to plan your approach, choose the right technologies, and find suitable suppliers.

 A small business owner checks a delivery. Before her is an open box. She is holding the shipping invoice in her right hand and comparing it against the goods delivered.

Disruptions, shortages, and out-of-stock situations impact your uptime and ability to meet customer expectations. Indeed, in the second quarter of 2023, supply chain issues remained a top concern for 23% of small business owners, according to the MetLife and U.S. Chamber Small Business Index . A procurement strategy increases supply chain visibility and resiliency while reducing your financial and operational risks.

In addition, a purposeful approach to procurement can save your company money and bolster relationships with suppliers. Follow this step-by-step guide to develop a procurement process suitable for your business goals and needs.

1. Assess your needs, goals, and budget

Procurement cycles differ by company; small and medium businesses (SMBs) should refrain from trying to create a one-size-fits-all plan. Instead, complete an internal review to learn what goods and services each department requires. Categorize these as direct (raw materials or services for production) or indirect (supports business activities). Then, break them into goods or services. Remember to include pricing and quantities to understand the spend for each group.

This step aims to see how much your business spends on direct and indirect goods and services. These figures will give you an idea of how procurement can benefit your company and how a strategy can help you overcome supply chain challenges .

[ Read more: 6 Ways to Protect Your Business From a Supply Chain Disruption ]

2. Establish metrics to measure your procurement performance

Procurement key performance indicators (KPIs) track your company’s efficiency and process goals. Monitoring metrics increases visibility into your supply chain and shows where you’re improving or need further action. You should set small business KPIs before beginning any new process.

Consider tracking the following metrics:

  • Rate of emergency purchases.
  • Procurement return on investment (ROI) and benefits.
  • Supplier defect rate.
  • Purchase order (PO) and invoice accuracy.
  • Compliance rate.
  • Supplier lead time.
  • Vendor availability.
  • PO cycle time.
  • Cost per invoice and PO.
  • Procurement ROI and benefits.
  • Spend under management.
  • Price competitiveness.

[ Read more: Big Brands’ Inventory Management Partners Share Top Tips to Slay Supply Chain Snarls ]

3. Consider current and new procurement technologies

Capterra stated, “Nearly 30% of SMBs plan to implement a new supply chain management tool in 2023.” Moreover, MHI predicts that “digital supply chains will be the norm” by 2033.

Although companies can choose an all-in-one procure-to-pay suite, Capterra found that many organizations opt for specialized tools. Niche programs are easier to use, integrate, and deploy.

See if your current software supports your procurement process, and while planning your strategy, look for opportunities to automate tasks using supply chain tech . Doing so can decrease errors and save time, allowing your procurement team to focus on high-value activities instead of data entry.

Procurement software solutions fall into the following categories (and several tools cover multiple areas):

  • Accounts payable and spend analysis: This software helps companies understand the procurement process and find cost-saving opportunities. Solutions include Coupa , SAP Ariba , Precoro , and PRM360 .
  • Procure to pay: These end-to-end platforms centralize many procurement activities. Consider solutions like mjPRO , Procurify , Precoro , Basware , and MHC Software .
  • Purchasing: Automate your approval workflows and view real-time spend data with SAP S/4HANA Cloud , Emburse Certify Expense , Spendwise , Veeqo , Unleashed , Planergy , Teampay , and Order.co .
  • Request for proposal (RFP): Create a central database for your procurement documents and use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to improve your workflows. Software solutions include Responsive (formerly RFPIO), Loopio , Avnio Response Cloud , RFP360 , QorusDocs , and RocketDocs .
  • Spend management: Manage your expenses automatically and visualize your costs with software like BILL Spend & Expense (Formerly Divvy), Ramp , Brex , Airbase , and Spendesk .
  • Strategic sourcing: Automate your sourcing and procurement process with software such as aPriori , Procol , and Anvyl .
  • Vendor management: Review, track, and manage suppliers with solutions from QuickBooks Online , Vanta , SAP Fieldglass , Venminder , Ncontracts , and Tradeshift Pay .

4. Find and evaluate suppliers

Identify vendors for each good, electronic component, service, raw material, or service your business requires. Obtain supply market intelligence using free resources from the U.S. Small Business Association and the U.S. Census Bureau . Also, consider paid services, such as IBIS World , Crain’s , Bloomberg , and Gartner . Consider each vendor’s cost structure, market information, past performance, and commodity profile.

This prescreening process is enough to move to the next stage for some services and goods (office supplies or standard maintenance items like grease). However, you should further evaluate complex parts and essential production components when the products substantially impact your budget and production capacity. The more risk that’s involved, the more time you should dedicate to the vetting process.

Consider criteria such as the following:

  • Location: Review the geographic stability, distance from your company, and supply chain infrastructure.
  • Cultural and language differences: Determine if barriers will cause communication issues during the process.
  • Working conditions: Focus on health and safety practices, child labor usage, and general working conditions.
  • Employee capabilities: See if there is a history of labor disputes or strikes, the turnover rate, and the workforce skill level.
  • Cost structure: Go over the total costs, including production, marketing, material, administrative, and supply chain expenses.
  • Technological capabilities: Consider the company’s approach to technology in design, equipment, processes, methods, and any current or future investments in research and development.
  • Quality control: Look at what system they use and record to ensure consistency for current and anticipated demand.

In the second quarter of 2023, supply chain issues remained a top concern for 23% of small business owners, according to the MetLife and U.S. Chamber Small Business Index.

5. Choose a sourcing strategy

After approving a purchase, your procurement team must select a supplier and either buy directly from them, send an RFP or a request for quote (RFQ), or enter into an agreement.

An RFP solicits bids from suppliers. It should outline your project and provide delivery requirements, financial terms, pricing structure, and product or service details. Alternatively, a company uses an RFQ when they only need a price quote, not information about products or services.

[ Read more: Do You Have a Supply Chain Backup Plan? How to Plan Ahead ]

6. Select suppliers and negotiate

Once you review the documents and choose a supplier, it’s time to negotiate vendor contracts . The agreement should outline the scope of work, delivery dates, budget, contract duration, legalities, terms, and conditions.

It’s important to remember that, ideally, you’re building a long-term relationship. You need to get the best deal possible. At the same time, compromise is part of negotiation.

7. Finalize documents and keep records

The onboarding process begins immediately after signing and approving the contract. Larger organizations often require individuals to complete a purchase requisition (PR). This form requests the procured goods or services and requires approval from an internal department manager or leader.

From there, the business creates a purchase order (PO). This document goes to the supplier and details the services or goods and negotiated terms and conditions.

Small businesses should keep all records on file, whether those records are paper files or digital forms. Doing so helps show your overall ROI and can support you when negotiating future vendor payment terms . Moreover, it’s essential for business tax and audit purposes.

Store the following documents:

  • Supplier invoices.
  • Delivery reports.
  • Company policies.
  • Purchase orders.
  • Packing lists.
  • RFPs and RFQs.
  • Procurement budget approvals.
  • Goods received note.

8. Inspect shipments and pay suppliers

Check out your first shipment to ensure everything is in good condition and in the correct quantity. Also, note if the supplier met the delivery schedule and satisfied the services outlined in the contract. If you have any concerns, contact the vendor for a meeting. Otherwise, you can go over the invoice for payment.

Companies often use the three-way matching method. It compares the purchase order, invoice, and itemized list for accuracy. From there (depending on your payment terms), your financial department will process the payment and send it to the supplier.

9. Review and adjust your procurement strategy

All business strategies are living documents. Nothing, including contracts, is set in stone.

Your procurement KPIs will highlight opportunities for improvement and areas where you could save money by adjusting your process or negotiating better contract terms. Likewise, you may realize inefficient processes are driving up administrative costs. In this case, automated spend management software or vendor management tools can boost productivity while reducing errors and ensuring policy compliance.

CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.

CO—is committed to helping you start, run and grow your small business. Learn more about the benefits of small business membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, here .

Next Event: Tax Filing Tips!

Join us on Thursday, February 22, at 12 pm ET for the first episode of our expert series, Ready. Set. Scale.: Smart Tax Tips for a Stress-Free Filing. We will have seasoned leaders offering actionable tips to help minimize the stressors of tax time for small businesses.

Subscribe to our newsletter, Midnight Oil

Expert business advice, news, and trends, delivered weekly

By signing up you agree to the CO— Privacy Policy. You can opt out anytime.

For more business strategies

How to file a beneficial ownership information report for your business, 22 resources for black-owned businesses.

By continuing on our website, you agree to our use of cookies for statistical and personalisation purposes. Know More

Welcome to CO—

Designed for business owners, CO— is a site that connects like minds and delivers actionable insights for next-level growth.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce 1615 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20062

Social links

Looking for local chamber, stay in touch.

  • Global directory Global directory
  • Product logins Product logins
  • Contact us Contact us

Our Privacy Statement & Cookie Policy

All Thomson Reuters websites use cookies to improve your online experience. They were placed on your computer when you launched this website. You can change your cookie settings through your browser.

  • Privacy Statement
  • Cookie Policy

management strategy in business plan

Enterprise risk management (ERM): An overview

February 20, 2024 · 12 minute read

Establish resilient enterprise risk management (ERM) with strategic planning, comprehensive risk identification, and effective communication, ensuring business sustainability and growth.

This blog is part of this series.

management strategy in business plan

Not long ago, retailer Bed Bath & Beyond was a Fortune 500 company. In 2023, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, closing its last store at the end of July. The reasons for its closure are numerous and complex. But it’s clear that it didn’t or couldn’t plan for all the dangers that brought down its once-booming business model.

As events such as the pandemic, the decline of many economies, and rapidly rising interest rates have demonstrated, even solid businesses can be disrupted. Companies of all kinds face numerous risks that could damage their operations, their reputation, their profitability, and even their viability. This makes the implementation of an enterprise risk management (ERM) initiative absolutely crucial. The goal of ERM is to help businesses make informed decisions about risk in order to operate more efficiently and profitably. But to be effective, an ERM initiative needs careful planning and enterprise-wide participation.

What is enterprise risk management?

Enterprise risk management (ERM) is a systematic approach to identifying risks associated with running a business, assessing their likelihood and potential impact, and developing strategies to manage and mitigate them. Most businesses have some kind of risk management program in place. But in “traditional” risk management, the management is typically left in the hands of separate divisions or departments. By contrast, ERM is a holistic approach, requiring communication and coordination between business units to identify and manage risks across the entire organization. Many companies have established an ERM team that includes stakeholders from several key departments.

This is because of the risks that enterprise risk management (ERM) addresses across departmental boundaries. These include strategic risks, which involve activities related to achieving business objectives. They also include financial risks that need to be managed such as debt levels, cash flow shortfalls, or investments that could harm the business’s bottom line. New technologies, notably generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT, could disrupt many companies’ business models and open them up to possible compliance challenges. Insufficient cybersecurity can cause crucial company or customer data to fall into the hands of cybercriminals. There are legal risks that would need to be managed such as lawsuits involving contracts or other business agreements. Then there are the risks associated with compliance–not meeting regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley regarding financial reporting, for instance.

Enterprise risk management (ERM) also includes operational risk management (ORM) , which focuses specifically on identifying, assessing, and managing risks related to the organization’s day-to-day operations. These can include risks associated with technology, regulatory compliance, and onboarding vendors . Like ERM, ORM seeks to reduce risks. However, the risks ORM addresses are unintentional risks, such as employees who accidentally open up company data systems to cybercriminals. Besides managing all types of risk, ERM can also help an organization to optimize certain intentional strategic risks —those that could bring in new customers, new product lines, and new ways to reduce expenses and improve performance.

In addition, enterprise risk management (ERM) incorporates the use of key performance indicators , or KRIs, with metrics that track risk assessment performance. It also typically includes the development of a “risk register” that outlines potential risks associated with certain activities or operations.

There are numerous reasons why enterprise risk management (ERM) is essential. Most notably, it allows organizations to be proactive in identifying and monitoring potential internal and external risks rather than simply reacting to them after they occur. It also establishes protocols for mitigating those risks that an enterprise simply can’t avoid.

Another key reason a business should establish an ERM program is to enhance its ability to operate more efficiently and profitably. By raising the profile of the potential dangers a company faces, ERM protocols can help inform strategic decision-making and implementation while also minimizing losses from potentially damaging risks.

By openly and transparently sharing information about risk and mitigation, a company-wide risk management initiative can keep all employees and other stakeholders aware of risks and risk management protocols. This can be beneficial when employees interact with customers about potential risks. That in turn can reassure all stakeholders about a company’s resilience and durability.

Steps to the enterprise risk management process

Crafting a successful enterprise risk management (ERM) initiative requires careful thought and rigorous execution. That thinking informs the following ERM components, which were developed by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO), a private-sector group that helps organizations provide guidance on internal control, risk management , and fraud deterrence:

Setting goals

This involves defining the organization’s goals and objectives and aligning them with its tolerance for risk. A business should recognize that long-range strategic plans are fraught with risks that could translate into opportunities–or dangers.

Internal workflows

Internal factors that influence the organization’s risk management include its management structure, governance, and company culture. These factors determine the enterprise’s risk appetite and what kinds of risks it needs to manage. While it is senior management (and, in many organizations, the company’s board of directors) that typically identifies what risks require managing, many organizations also engage employee input.

Identifying risks

This involves identifying risks, defined as events or situations, that could affect the organization’s ability to achieve its objectives. These impacts can be either beneficial or harmful to the company’s future operations. An ERM program should identify high-risk events that could be particularly damaging. An example of such an event might be the current backup at the Panama Canal, which is snarling numerous companies’ supply chains.

Assessing risk

In this step, a company determines how likely the risks it has identified risks are likely to occur. It also prioritizes them based on how significant an impact they might have. The COSA ERM framework suggests that companies assess both the percent change of occurrence and the dollar impact of a potential risk. In addition, COSA advises that an organization assess not only the direct risk (COVID-19 social distancing) but also residual risks (employees resisting returning to the office). There are many types of risk assessments depending on the industry, but overall, risk assessment tools have their benefits .

Responding to risk

The organization then develops and implements strategies for managing the risks it has identified. One strategy is avoidance. An example would be shedding a business line where the potential dangers outweigh any benefits. A second strategy is maintaining that business line while establishing protocols to reduce any potential damage. A third option is acceptance. A company may choose this route if it determines the possibility of a risk event occurring is low and the costs of reducing potential negative impacts are too high.

Controlling activities

Also known as internal controls, these activities involve implementing policies and procedures to mitigate the identified risks and monitoring their effectiveness. Control activities can be classified as preventative (preventing or mitigating a risk event) or detective (recognizing the risk event and responding appropriately).

Monitoring risk activity

This involves continuously monitoring the organization’s risk management processes and controls, and making adjustments as needed. A company may wish to contract with an external consultant to evaluate its risk management practices. Whether the monitoring is conducted externally or internally, it should determine how well the ERM process is working, and whether the company is leaving itself vulnerable to any risk despite the processes and policies in place.

Communicating information

This step ensures that the organization’s risk management processes and results are communicated to stakeholders. Those within the business overseeing its ERM initiative should gather data and design metrics regarding the company’s risks and how they’re being managed. Sharing this information with senior management and affected employees can ensure their involvement in any needed mitigation.

Benefits and challenges to enterprise risk management

What are the benefits of enterprise risk management.

A rigorous, thoughtfully developed enterprise risk management (ERM) program can help avoid financial losses, reputational damage, compliance failures, and legal liability. It also improves business decision-making because it provides more complete information on the risks a company faces. As a result, an ERM program can strengthen corporate governance and oversight and reduce instances of fraud.

Enterprise risk management (ERM) also boosts internal communication and interdepartmental cooperation. The regular risk reports that a firm’s ERM team delivers to upper management include a list or “matrix” of the risks, how these risks are being prepared for or mitigated, and how the risks are being prioritized. This information is crucial for management decision-making and guidance regarding risk response and preparation.

An enterprise risk management (ERM) program can help a company’s operations and profitability in numerous ways. It can uncover areas where a company is vulnerable to theft or embezzlement. It can be useful in discovering markets and product areas to enter or to avoid. ERM also can strengthen a business’s supply chain by identifying areas where that chain might be weak. An example would be the recent semiconductor shortage, which slowed production for many companies. All this can result in better management of strategic risks that could lead to new opportunities (such as acquisitions and new products) or dangers (such as new competitors and disruptive technologies).

What are the challenges of enterprise risk management?

Despite all the advantages of enterprise risk management (ERM), getting a program established is by no means a slam dunk. For most companies, ERM requires culture, process, or system changes that can be costly, time-consuming, and disruptive. ERM can be particularly costly to businesses that have limited resources. As a result, it may be difficult for supporters of an effective ERM program to get buy-in from upper management.

Company leaders may believe that the investments of time, talent, technology, and capital needed to implement an enterprise risk management (ERM) initiative don’t pencil out, and that those costs exceed the potential benefits. They may argue that it’s difficult to project a program’s effectiveness, including a legal project management tool , because it involves assessing the probability and impact of risk events that may or may not occur. Establishing metrics is often one of the most significant challenges an ERM initiative wrestles with. In addition, ERM also could result in organizations becoming reliant on particular digital technology tools, which could be a risk in itself.

If a company does go forward with establishing an enterprise risk management (ERM) program, there are other risks it will need to anticipate. It makes perfect sense that the risks an enterprise will seek to manage will be those that the company has already faced or is currently facing. But the most potentially dangerous risks are those that it hasn’t encountered. The recent pandemic is a particularly notable example. How many companies not only anticipated the pandemic but also had metrics in place to measure its effect on the business’s customers, employees, and other stakeholders? And how could the potential costs of mitigating the risks associated with the coronavirus have been determined?

Best practices for enterprise risk management

Companies need to consider both the benefits and challenges of enterprise risk management as they craft their own enterprise risk management (ERM) program. This can help them determine the best practices they should follow.

The components of enterprise risk management (ERM) discussed earlier reflect many of the best practices of an effective ERM initiative. Clearly, such a program needs to identify, assess, and prioritize all risks an enterprise might face. It needs to develop consistent action plans that eliminate or reduce the most significant risks, as well as processes to continuously monitor risk and risk-related metrics–and then enforce risk management policies.

For this to succeed, a company should also develop a culture that includes open communication about risk and risk management throughout the organization. It should also assign risk management responsibilities to appropriate employees. And it should determine whether there are ways to automate risk management processes.

Final words

In an unpredictable, fast-changing business environment, an enterprise risk management (ERM) initiative is essential. An ERM program includes assessment, prioritizing, and mitigation of any potential risk to a company’s future health and success. And wherever necessary, it solicits the participation and input of all stakeholders—senior management, board of directors, employees, and customers.

The benefits of a well-crafted risk management strategy include thorough regulatory compliance, a clearer sense of how strategic risks can help or hurt a business, and improved decision-making about operations, opportunities, and future planning. It’s not stated too strongly to say that an enterprise risk management program could mean the difference between maintaining a successful business—or going out of business entirely.

  • Fraud Waste & Abuse
  • Preventing Fraud

management strategy in business plan

Join our community

Sign up for industry-leading insights, updates, and all things AI @ Thomson Reuters.

management strategy in business plan

Webcast and events

Browse all our upcoming and on-demand webcasts and virtual events hosted by leading legal experts.

management strategy in business plan

Charting a path forward with AI adoption in compliance: Reducing uncertainty and embracing change

Industry expercts discuss the best examples of AI being used for compliance, the key risks that come with these options, what this means for compliance analysts, and how compliance leaders can make themselves and regulators comfortable with putting AI to use.

management strategy in business plan

Mitigate risk, detect fraudulent activity, and streamline investigations

In today’s digital world, risk and fraud detection is even more important than ever before

Related posts

management strategy in business plan

Operational risk management (ORM): An overview

management strategy in business plan

Risk management: The framework

management strategy in business plan

Why AI still needs regulation despite impact

More answers.

management strategy in business plan

Building support for a legal spend management system

management strategy in business plan

AI’s impact on law firms of every size

management strategy in business plan

How technology can help to boost business productivity

Barclays focuses on Britain, cost cuts, buybacks to win over investors

  • Shares rise following 10 bln stg buyback plan
  • Lender eyes billions of cost cuts
  • Targets returns in excess of 12% in 2026
  • 2023 FY profit falls 6%, in line with forecasts

A woman walks past a branch of Barclays Bank, in London

NEW STRUCTURE

Reporting by Lawrence White and Iain Withers; Editing by Sinead Cruise and Alexander Smith

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab

Illustration shows Broadcom logo

Union demands Lufthansa makes improved offer before agreeing fresh talks

German labour union Verdi on Saturday demanded Lufthansa offers a higher wage increase for thousands of the German airline's ground crew before it agrees to a fresh round of pay talks aimed at averting further industrial action.

NVIDIA HGX AI Supercomputer on display during the annual Foxconn Tech Day in Taipei

IMAGES

  1. Engage the Entire Organization in Strategic Planning in Business and at

    management strategy in business plan

  2. How to Create Simple Business Strategy

    management strategy in business plan

  3. 32 Great Strategic Plan Templates to Grow your Business

    management strategy in business plan

  4. Types of strategic management model

    management strategy in business plan

  5. The Ultimate Business Strategy Guide with a Strategic Plan Template

    management strategy in business plan

  6. Stages and Types of Strategy

    management strategy in business plan

VIDEO

  1. Type of Business Management🔥 Courses || Social media marketing Advice for Beginners

  2. Business Planning: Stages in Planning and Managing an Enterprise

  3. Strategic Planning: Business Plan in 1 Minute

  4. Details of Business Plans made based on Najafi Framework

  5. Business Strategy Management Final Part

  6. What is Business Management

COMMENTS

  1. What Is Business Strategy & Why Is It Important?

    Business strategy is the strategic initiatives a company pursues to create value for the organization and its stakeholders and gain a competitive advantage in the market. This strategy is crucial to a company's success and is needed before any goods or services are produced or delivered.

  2. How to Develop a Business Strategy: 6 Steps

    Business strategy is the development, alignment, and integration of an organization's strategic initiatives to give it a competitive edge in the market. Devising a business strategy can ensure you have a clear plan for reaching organizational goals and continue to survive and thrive.

  3. What is Strategic Planning? A 5-Step Guide [2024] • Asana

    Strategic planning is a business process that helps you define and share the direction your company will take in the next three to five years. During the strategic planning process, stakeholders review and define the organization's mission and goals, conduct competitive assessments, and identify company goals and objectives.

  4. A Manager's Guide to Successful Strategy Implementation

    Strategy Strategy Execution Print To address business challenges and concerns, organizations must constantly monitor, evaluate, and adjust their strategic initiatives. When it's time to implement a new strategy, it's typically up to managers to do so. Free E-Book: How to Formulate a Successful Business Strategy Access your free e-book today.

  5. How To Write A Business Strategy: Your Four-Step Guide

    Strategic Planning. Creating a solid business strategy happens in three parts: 1) understanding where you stand strategically as an organization right now; 2) deciding where you want to be in the future; and 3) determining how you'll get there. The steps below cover each of these areas, with steps three and four both being part of the final ...

  6. Strategic Planning Tools: What, Why, How, Template

    Strategic plans bridge the gap from overall direction to specific projects and day-to-day actions that ultimately execute the strategy. Job No. 1 is to know the difference between strategy and strategic plans — and why it matters. Strategy defines the long-term direction of the enterprise. It articulates what the enterprise will do to compete ...

  7. Strategic planning

    Coupling Strategy to Operating Plans. Operations strategy Magazine Article. John M. Hobbs. Donald F. Heany. In recent years a growing number of companies have expended considerable amounts of time ...

  8. How to Implement a Strategic Management Process [2023] • Asana

    Strategic planning Process implementation plans to achieve your organization's objectives Competitive strategy implementation Strategic management might sound similar to several other critical business elements. Here's how it stacks up in the business environment. Create a strategic planning template Strategic management vs. strategy

  9. What Is Strategic Management? Benefits, Process, and Careers

    Strategic management involves developing and implementing plans to help an organization achieve its goals and objectives. This process can include formulating strategy, planning organizational structure and resource allocation, leading change initiatives, and controlling processes and resources.

  10. 6 Steps to Make Your Strategic Plan Really Strategic

    Alicia Llop/Getty Images. Summary. Many strategic plans aren't strategic, or even plans. To fix that, try a six step process: first, identify key stakeholders. Second, identify a specific, very ...

  11. Strategic Planning

    Start Free Written by CFI Team What is Strategic Planning? Strategic planning is the art of creating specific business strategies, implementing them, and evaluating the results of executing the plan, in regard to a company's overall long-term goals or desires.

  12. Strategic Planning in Business

    A tactical plan is created by the middle management level of a business and describes the specific goals, initiatives, ... A business strategic plan is an implementation plan that's meant to turn a business strategy into action items that can be executed over time. Business strategic plans are usually executed over the course of 3-5 years.

  13. What is Strategic Management, and Why is it Important?

    Strategic management is the ongoing planning, monitoring, analysis and assessment of all necessities an organization needs to meet its goals and objectives. Changes in business environments will require organizations to constantly assess their strategies for success.

  14. What Is Strategic Management?

    Strategic management is the management of an organization's resources to achieve its goals and objectives. Strategic management involves setting objectives, analyzing the competitive...

  15. How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)

    Describe Your Services or Products. The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you're offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit ...

  16. What is strategic plan management and how does it benefit teams?

    Strategic business management is the iterative process by which an organization creates and sustains a successful strategic plan. This plan takes big-picture thinking and funnels it down to key initiatives.. The plan's purpose if to move the company in the direction it needs to move, year after year, for long-term success.

  17. What Is Strategy Implementation? 6 Key Steps [2022] • Asana

    Step 1: Set and communicate clear, strategic goals. The first step is where your strategic plan and your strategy implementation overlap. To implement a new strategy, you first must identify clear and attainable goals. As with all things, communication is key. Your goals should include your vision and mission statements, long-term goals, and KPIs .

  18. How To Write the Management Section of a Business Plan

    When developing a business plan, the 'management section' describes your management team, staff, resources, and how your business ownership is structured. This section should not only describe who's on your management team but how each person's skill set will contribute to your bottom line.

  19. PDF How to write a strategic plan

    Overcoming Challenges and Pitfalls. Challenge of consensus over clarity. Challenge of who provides input versus who decides. Preparing a long, ambitious, 5 year plan that sits on a shelf. Finding a balance between process and a final product. Communicating and executing the plan. Lack of alignment between mission, action, and finances.

  20. What To Include in a Strategic Business Plan (With Template)

    An annual strategic business plan should include 8 key sections. Follow these steps to write an effective annual strategic business plan: State information that defines the company. Perform a SWOT analysis. Identify business goals. Identify key performance indicators. Perform and summarize market research. Outline the business marketing plan.

  21. Why Is Strategic Planning Important?

    Strategic planning is the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business's intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organization's goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning.

  22. 8 Business Management Strategies Used by Top Managers

    4. Being Vulnerable. Vulnerability is a great tool in the toolkit of any emotionally intelligent top manager. Courageous managers leverage their "woundedness" into genuine innovation, connections, and learning. Successful executive managers do not lead as anonymous figures in the lives of their employees.

  23. 5 Examples of a Management Plan for a Business Plan

    In the context of a business plan, a management plan is a high level plan for the direction and control of an organization. The following are examples of elements that can be included in a management plan. Management Team A brief biography of the executive management of the organization or unit. Organizational Structure

  24. 10 Essential Managerial Skills and How to Develop Them

    How does good management benefit a company? Good management helps ensure an organization's success in several ways. These include: Planning: Good managers plan strategies to achieve company goals. Organization: Good managers know about company resources and how to allocate them. Direction: Good managers know how to direct and motivate employees. Control: Good managers ensure employees execute ...

  25. Property Management Business Plan PDF Example

    Strategy SWOT. First, conduct a SWOT analysis for the property management business, highlighting Strengths (such as experienced management team and comprehensive property management solutions), Weaknesses (including potential scalability issues or limited market presence), Opportunities (for example, expanding real estate markets and increasing demand for rental properties), and Threats (such ...

  26. 9 Essential Steps in the Procurement Process

    9. Review and adjust your procurement strategy. All business strategies are living documents. Nothing, including contracts, is set in stone. Your procurement KPIs will highlight opportunities for improvement and areas where you could save money by adjusting your process or negotiating better contract terms.

  27. Enterprise risk management (ERM): An overview

    It also improves business decision-making because it provides more complete information on the risks a company faces. As a result, an ERM program can strengthen corporate governance and oversight and reduce instances of fraud. Enterprise risk management (ERM) also boosts internal communication and interdepartmental cooperation.

  28. Barclays focuses on Britain, cost cuts, buybacks to win over investors

    Barclays laid out a three-year plan to revive its flagging share price on Tuesday, including axing 2 billion pounds of costs, returning 10 billion pounds ($12.6 billion) to shareholders and ...